When Johnny Cash died, a real 'Voice of the People' was stilled. I have been a Johnny Cash fan all of my life. Not just because he was a legendary musician and not just because he never betrayed his working class roots.
I'm a Johnny Cash fan mainly because I grew up where he grew up. My cultural heritage is his cultural heritage. I was born exactly nine miles from where he was born. I grew up among farmers and sawmill hands just as he did. My ancestors knew his ancestors. The Tri-County area around Fordyce, AR was settled mainly by 'mountain people' from the Blue Ridge and the Smokey Mountains of Appalachia. Strong, independent and hard working people who never asked for anything they did not earn.
Here is Johnny describing his upbringing and a special treat song that was not a big hit, but obviously had a deep meaning for him.
">Johnny Cash in 1977
After the Civil War, these 'mountain people' found themselves in a society that, just a few years before, they most likely never even dreamed would exist. That Tri-County Area, consisting of Dallas, Calhoun and Cleveland Counties in South Central Arkansas, had been the site of grand plantations before the War, with a large slave population. The large plantations were owned by wealthy 'Southern Aristocracy' planters descended from the 'First Families' of Virginia and North Carolina. Most of the white population, however, consisted of small holdings farmers. Imagine, if you will, being confronted with a large population of freed slaves turned out of the only homes they knew. The white population of hard-scrabble farmers returning from the Civil War to an area devastated by warring armies see-sawing back and forth over the land for years. We have a saying down here in Arkansas: "Root hog or Die!"Which when translated means: "Get busy living, or get busy dying." The situation was a perfect setting for racial confrontation and competition for survival.
What did they do? The two competing groups decided that the best thing to do was to combine forces and work toward the common goal of survival. The solution they came up with was 'share-cropping.'Nowadays, that term has a very negative connotation, but in its purest form, it is a fair and equitable manner of farming. The white farmer had the land, but no labor. The freed slave had his labor, but no land. What this created was a symbiotic society based on hard work and deep respect for each other. To be sure, you cannot undo centuries of tradition overnight. The color barrier was still strongly in place, but it is very hard to hate or even disrespect someone who is engaged in the same work, eats the same food and drinks out of the same dipper as you.
Johnny Cash came from that society, his grandparents created that society. Hard work and those who performed it were held in esteem; no matter what color you were. So, the 'Man in Black' was no gimmick to sell records, no sham to generate sympathy; it was who Johnny Cash was to the core of his being.
So, what would Johnny Cash think? Whose side would he be on in this 21st Century Class Struggle? My money says that it wouldn't be the Koch Brothers and their ilk.
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Do I personally have a bone to pick with the Koch Brothers? You bet I do! GP (Georgia-Pacific) as we all know by now is owned by the Koch Brothers Evil Empire. The link is to a story about what they did to my people.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/...
The deep connection of the Cotton Belt Railroad to the Tri-County Area
http://www.fordyceonthecottonbelt.com/
Updated by Arkieboy at Wed Mar 16, 2011 at 06:28 PM CDT
I want to thank DaNang65 for refreshing my memory. I also want to make it clear that 'sharecropping' in the South became perverted and unfair because the greed of the large landowners; who began to view people they were actually partners with as free labor to be exploited all over again. My ancestors were small farmers who were fair with their neighbors when it would have been very easy to take advantage.